Fanny Moreaux Highlights The Best Art X Video Games Collab | Winter Spectacular 2023
After a year full of great games and a very sad amount of layoffs (amongst many other things), I'm not taking a big risk saying 2023 has a bittersweet feeling for us in gaming industry, making it difficult to really feel happy and invested about the innovations we have seen in the space
While it is important to keep in mind the sad things and to work on them, it is equally important, mostly for our mental health, to remember to look for the nice things we’re grateful for (like in our everyday life really!) when the mood is low. Personally, one of the things I like to check out when I’m in need of a boost is creative partnerships. On one hand in a very selfish way, since I’m into a lot of different hobbies and arts, but on the other hand keeping an eye on these collaborations helps me in my work.
One thing I believe in fully is the way marketing strategies have to get diversified. To allow a breath of fresh air, to talk to the many niches we often forget about, and find a new way to get funds, away from the overdone gameplay videos and saturating the market with Twitch streams. If we want to get people interested in a game these days we have to do things that will really grab people’s attention.
I want to provide examples - like I did at Develop Brighton this past summer and play on doing at the next GDC in March - that Games Marketing should use the connections it has with the different kinds of arts to its advantage as a way to show the games we are working on to brand new audiences.
Knowing all that, I wanted to offer you a small trip into some of my favourite creative collaborations of this year, in the hope it can brighten your day and give you new ideas to talk about!
Disclaimer: This article will not talk about Fast Fashion collaborations (Like the puma x Final Fantasy 14 shoes), or crossovers between games (like the Yamaoka x Decarnation collaboration) as I believe they belong to a different category. Also, this article is not exhaustive, and will only show you my own favs, so if you have any knowledge of other collaborations we would be very happy to learn about them!
Diablo 4’s Campaign
One of the campaigns that put a lot of effort into artistic collaborations this year is Diablo 4’s launch. The game started out strong by unveiling a collaboration with the high-fashion Danish brand Han Kjøbenhavn at Milan’s Fashion Week at the beginning of the year. The Founder, Jannik Wikkelsø Davidsen, is already known for his ethereal dark work. He gave several interviews to explain how he put together these fantastic silhouettes that resonated with the game as well as with his past. Jannik even said he used to play Diablo a lot in the past, and said the collaboration was meant to have a next step with pieces more fitted for everyday wear!
Closer to its release, Diablo 4 also collaborated with cosplayers such as Cinderys art, working together to bring Lilith to the real world. The cosplayer showed the step-by-step process on her Instagram page and in streaming sessions, showing the 3D impression of the props and how she polished them to get every detail right. Having cosplayers collaborate for game launches is far from rare, but Cinderys’ look was one of my favs this year.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Campaign
The quality of Cinderys’ work can actually be seen in another big campaign of this year, as she cosplayed Shadowheart for Baldur’s Gate 3’s launch! I won’t spend long on this one since I worked on it, but it would be unfair to not show some examples of what has been done when asked what are my favourite creative partnerships of this year.
Baldur’s Gate had several other collabs too, from sponsored illustrations and music to cosplays but here’s a small glimpse of my favs:
Anna Pantsu is well known for her covers of big pop titles and big pop culture-related songs! With Hades, Encanto, and many others, but they went all out for their cover of one of BG3 original songs, I Want to Live.
And a special recipe inspired by the game was created by Quicy’s tavern, perfect to go with your cold winter nights as you play games.
Final Fantasy XVI And Pièces Uniques
It seems like Fashion Week is becoming the place to show clothing partnerships with video games, as Final Fantasy XVI’s took the opportunity to announce its collaboration with Pièces Uniques at Paris’ Fashion week in June. Similar to Diablo 4’s high fashion collab is a bit different than the partnerships I usually like to preach about. This is because it’s more designed to create a PR beat than to get new clothes in the hands of average fans or find new ones. That said the outfits created for this collection are so mesmerising I’m willing to overlook it.
Edmond Lulu, CEO of the French brand, said this partnership was a dream come true, as one of their main sources of inspiration is video games. Every look is inspired by the heroes of the game.
Ghost Trick x Dat Cravat
Capcom had the taste to re-launch one of my favourite games from when I was a teenage this summer with Ghost Trick making a comeback. The publisher also took the opportunity to commission one of my fav creators to celebrate the launch. I'm not behind this activation and yet it sounds like it could be my doing. DatCravat is known for her Fanart of Ace Attorney and Persona characters, so she was a great choice from Capcom in my opinion!
Also, Capcom has a creator program you should definitely keep an eye out for - whatever sort of creator you are - and the company often shares illustrations from the community! This is obviously a great way to keep the communities feeling active and alive, but I’ve found it rare to see fan content that is not streaming actually put in the spotlight by such big companies.
Kpop x Games
We all know about K-pop collaborations with video games, from BTS with Cookie Kingdom to Blackpink with PUBG, and in-universe groups created especially for League Of Leagues’ campaign, like their new boy band Heartsteel that launched two months ago! This year was full of Kpop music collabs, bringing us some really surprising and good quality content!
New Jeans unveiled its new track named “Gods” for League of Legends, made to celebrate the League of Legends World Championship
Enhypen became Pokemon Trainers and launched their new song “One and Only” as a part of The Pokémon Company’s ‘Pokémon Music Collective’ project.
While Le Sserafim released their new song “Perfect Night”, in collaboration with Overwatch 2, along with special skins,a music video, and performance at Blizzcon to celebrate.
In short 2023 has been a nice year for creative content creators collaborating with the people and companies making video games. These sort of collaborations show a lot of creativity and showcase a lot of different kinds of artists of all sizes, and I really hope it continues to grow next year!
